


Or Should I Walk by Again

by Giddygeek



Category: The Heat (2013)
Genre: F/F, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:48:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giddygeek/pseuds/Giddygeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shannon said, "Get it together, Ashburn. You can say shit like 'jill off' but you can't handle a little flirting from a girl? You're even sadder than I thought, and I thought you were plenty sad."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Or Should I Walk by Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Toft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toft/gifts).



It all started with a lamp.

It was a hideous lamp, probably from the 70s, with beads dripping from its scratchy orange shade, and a heavy mahogany base with sharp edges. The cord was a thick brown line dangling down into the snow on Sarah's stoop.

"This is yours," Mullins said. Sarah looked from the lamp to her partner, bundled up against the snowflakes sparkling on the vest she was wearing _over_ her ancient down coat.

"No," Sarah said. "No, it surely is not. That does not belong to me. It belongs to an exhibit on the horrors of 1970s decorating trends."

Shannon frowned at her from under the lid of a baseball cap. PawSox, of course. Sarah had bought it for her as a thank you for Shannon taking her to a game at McCoy Stadium over the summer. The PawSox lost, but it had been...fun. Shannon seemed to know everyone at the stadium, and after the game, there were fireworks. 

Sarah had asked why not the Red Sox, why not Fenway? and Shannon had scowled, tugging on the brim of her new cap. "Fenway is for chumps," she'd said. "You like spending all your money and cheering for fucking prima donnas, go to fucking Fenway. You like hot dogs, underdogs, and dogged determination, you come here." Later, as they sat in the traffic slowly feeding out of the surprisingly residential neighborhood around McCoy, she said, "Plus, the PawSox are less likely to give you skankily transmitted diseases when you fuck 'em."

And now, as the snow fell on the brim of Shannon's PawSox cap and the orange shade of the lamp, Sarah sighed and stepped back. "Come in," she said, resigned. 

Shannon stomped inside triumphantly and headed straight for the living room, leaving slushy footprints behind her. She put the lamp down on the side table, knocking the small brass lamp already there onto the floor despite Sarah's protests and fumbling attempt to catch it, saying, "That lamp, that is a pathetic lamp, what are you going to do, rub it until a genie appears?" Her hand gesture for 'rubbing' looked an awful lot like giving a handjob, unsurprisingly. 

She plugged in the orange lamp and Sarah winced, expecting the snow-damp plug to shock her. Shannon turned the lamp on and took a step back, crossing her arms over her chest.

"There," she said, satisfied. "Don't that look nice. Makes the whole place a little more homey, a little less like the sterile, terrifying den of some serial killing doctor, a surgeon or someone OCD who likes to look at people's insides, or something. Good."

"A serial killer's den? You keep grenades in your fridge, Mullins. Grenades!"

Shannon sniffed. "Adds character," she said implacably. "Unlike your fridge full of yogurt and orange juice. God. It's like a fucking magazine spread in there, right out of _Boring Women's Weekly_ or some fucking thing. You know what, you need a grenade. You need a little _life_ in there."

"There isn't supposed to be _life_ in the fridge, Mullins," Sarah said. "The whole point of a fridge to _prevent life from growing in your_ \--" Shannon was just looking at her with raised eyebrows. Sarah stopped, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to three. She thought about a grenade in her fridge and started over to count to ten. Then she opened her eyes and looked at Shannon, who was watching her with an expression like Sarah was the insane one; it was also, somehow, fond. 

"I don't need any grenades," Sarah said, more calmly. "But the lamp looks, it looks very nice. Thank you. It brightens up the room."

Shannon's face filled with amusement, and she punched Sarah on the arm. "Of course it does, dummy," she said. "It's a _lamp_."

Sarah opened her mouth to say something snappy, then looked at Shannon with snowflakes on her shoulders, red cheeks, and bright eyes, so happy with her...gift. She sighed and said, "Don't call me dummy, dummy. Hey, let me take your coat. And your vest--no, you can't keep the vest, it's soaked right through. Do you want a beer?"

"Do I want a beer, she asks," Shannon said, handing over her vest and her coat; small victories. She flopped aggressively across the couch and settled down, making herself right at home. Sarah watched her, smiling, and then went to get them beer.

~

After that, the gifts arrived regularly. Shannon came over with framed photographs of Boston's neighborhoods; a black velvet painting of a calico cat playing with a scruffy dog; two books, both by Dan Brown; and a handmade blanket in garish shades of orange, brown and blue.

"Who made this?" Sarah asked, examining the stitches. It wasn't perfect, but it was really nice anyway.

Shannon shifted from foot to foot. "Aww, no one," she said. "Well, me. Well, me back before I had so many guns to clean and I had time for a fucking hobby."

" _You_?"

Shannon scowled. "You know what they say about idle hands, Ashburn. You'll get a fucking repetitive stress injury if you jerk off too much."

"Oh yeah," Sarah said, imagining Shannon jerking off and knitting, jerking off and knitting _this blanket_ and feeling her face grow flushed. "That _is_ what they say, isn't it."

Shannon grinned at her, then took the blanket and tossed it over the couch. It looked insane, lying there draped over the plain, not entirely comfortable cushions--the couch had come with the townhouse, and nothing in the whole place was entirely comfortable--but it also looked soft and cozy. It was big enough to cuddle up under. Sarah looked at Shannon, who was proudly surveying her work, and then looked away.

"Well, time's a-fucking-wasting," Shannon said, having tweaked the blanket to her satisfaction. "Come on, let's get to work; can you believe my dickhead captain said I was coming in unacceptably late? What a pile of shit. An hour here, an hour there; I work sixty fucking hours a week, I make half the arrests in the precinct, more than half, like, _more_ , and he tells me I can't come in whenever I want?"

Sarah sighed and put on her suit coat.

Shannon, watching her, said, "You know what they say about criminals."

Sarah wrapped her scarf around her neck. "I'm sure I do not."

"They say, those dumb fucks will give themselves a repetitive stress injury if they jerk off too much, which they do, when people try to tell me how to catch them, and keep me from doing my job the way I want! Hurry up, hurry up--where are your gloves? How are you always losing your gloves?"

Sarah let herself be hustled into her coat. "Because you think they're ugly and you keep throwing them away. Uh, is there anyone they _don't_ say that about?"

"You, because you've got the sex drive of a Roomba," Shannon said. "A fucking Roomba, with the batteries removed, so it's just a sad, round little toy sitting in a corner being useless. That's you, that's your sex drive."

"It is not. It isn't. I jerk off, or, as I prefer, jill off," Sarah said primly.

"Yeah?" Shannon eyed her. "Yeah, okay, Women's Studies; I can see it."

"Uh," Sarah said, because Shannon was looking at her like she _could_ see it. That was...interesting. 

Then Shannon said, "Get it together, Ashburn. You can say shit like 'jill off' but you can't handle a little flirting from a girl? You're even sadder than I thought, and I thought you were plenty sad."

Sarah said, "I can too handle it when a girl flirts with me," and Shannon turned, put her hands on her hips, studied her with raised eyebrows and pursed lips. She said, "Oh yeah? _Prove it, _" and marched off to her disaster of a car.__

__Sarah felt her heart racing. What had happened to her? She used to be cool as a cucumber. Well, if not cool, at least room temperature; _this_ feeling was not room temperature at all._ _

__But it was...good._ _

__She followed Shannon to the car, trying to imitate her stride, which was impossible; the walkway was a little icy, and Sarah's center of gravity was far too high to accommodate that much swagger. "Hey Mullins," she said, super-casually, catching up just as Shannon was about to drop into the driver's seat. "That vest looks good on you."_ _

__Shannon looked down, half in and half out of the car. "You hate this vest."_ _

__"I don't hate it. I just hate to see it on you," Sarah said, and beamed at her partner. "When it would look better on my floor."_ _

__Shannon blinked, then laughed and got into the car, Sarah following. Shannon gave her just enough time to buckle her seatbelt, then threw the car into gear. "Weak," she said, reversing the car out of the guest parking spot and whipping it around like hot lava was going to engulf it if she didn't _go go go now now now_._ _

__"You liked it," Sarah said, certain, and Shannon looked sideways at her, smiled with surprising sweetness. She said, "Well, it wasn't _suave_ but it wasn't as hopeless as I'd expected. Good job, Ashburn. You might get a chance to dust the cobwebs out of your vagina sometime this century after all," and off they went to work, bickering about pickup lines. Sarah's heart raced with excitement and the thrill of her own daring all the way._ _

__~_ _

__As the snow started to melt and Boston took on a wet, muddy dog sort of appearance--and smell--people started crawling out of their winter hidey-holes. That was fine, but they crawled out in order to walk around in flip-flops, shorts, t-shirts._ _

__"But it's _cold_ ," Sarah said, bundled up in her jacket, wearing the purple mittens Shannon had made her for Christmas. Sarah had found them in her fridge, wrapped in a trash bag. Shannon's Christmas card had been a scrap of torn paper that said, simply, "BOOM." _ _

__"It's forty degrees out there!" Shannon said. Her bare arms were pasty in the weak sunshine, and dotted with freckles. "That's fucking spring! It's fucking picnic weather! You want to go on a picnic?"_ _

__Sarah stared at her. "There's a foot of snow on the ground!"_ _

__Shannon rolled her eyes, then turned in at a drive-through Dunks. She yelled something unintelligible into the speaker at a woman who yelled something unintelligible back, and at the window she gave them two iced coffees and two tuna sandwiches._ _

__"But I don't _want_ a tuna sandwich from the doughnut place," Sarah said. "And this coffee has _ice_!"_ _

__"Oh, keep your mittens on, you big baby," Shannon said, and then drove a series of wild twists and turns through the narrow streets of Boston, to a neighborhood on top of a hill. The views were long enough to show them the bay._ _

__Shannon left the heat running but opened the windows while Sarah sullenly dug her sandwich out of the bag. The air coming in did somehow smell warm, Sarah thought, although it was only forty and the wind was chilled by the foot of slushy, sandy snow on the ground. She left her mittens on as directed, ate her tuna sandwich, drank her iced coffee, considered her options. When Shannon turned to her, mid-rant about the Celtics, Sarah leaned forward and kissed her._ _

__Shannon tasted like coffee, tuna and cold air, and her mouth was tense with surprise at first. But then it softened and she kissed Sarah back eagerly, enthusiastically. She tugged Sarah closer when the kiss broke for a moment, her hand coming up to tangle in Sarah's hair. Sarah gasped, a little surprised by the excited tingle washing over her body, and felt Shannon smile against her mouth._ _

__She put her own hand on Shannon's thigh, warm and solid through the soft weave of her mitten, and squeezed. That made Shannon gasp too, her legs parting a little, and Sarah laughed, delighted. This time when the kiss broke they both leaned back a little, staring at each other. Sarah knew she was flushed, her hair disheveled; Shannon was the same, although really, she was _always_ a little flushed and disheveled. _ _

__"Maybe you're not a Roomba," Shannon said, grinning, and Sarah slid her hand a little higher on Shannon's thigh, an eyebrow raised. Shannon liked that; her pupils dilated, she licked her lip._ _

__"I'm at least a Hoover," Sarah said, sliding her hand toward the inside of Shannon's thigh, cupping it, watching Shannon draw in a deep breath._ _

__"Suction jokes are wasted in girl-on-girl flirting," Shannon said, and Sarah leaned forward, murmuring, "That was an FBI joke, Mullins, follow along," as she pressed a soft, sucking kiss to Shannon's neck, just below her ear. Shannon's hair was untidy, curly and wild, but it smelled good, like shampoo and cold air. Shannon's hand gripped the back of Sarah's neck and they were kissing again, hotly now, pressing against each other's mouths harder and harder._ _

__The splat of something wet against the windshield drove them apart. It was just a little snow, late season fluff, heavy and wet, half ice and half rain. Flakes began to fall faster and faster, and Sarah said triumphantly, "It's _cold_ ," as Shannon begrudgingly let go, rolled up the windows._ _

__"Yeah yeah," she said, grumbling, but smiling as she put the car in drive. "But you can't deny that was a great picnic," and, "No," Sarah said earnestly. "I cannot deny that, no." She hid her smile behind her cup of iced coffee, held so carefully in her mittened hands._ _

__~_ _

__The final straw was the dog._ _

__"I'll take care of him," Shannon said, shuffling her feet. "I just, you know. I can't keep him at my place, you know it's a dump. Bunker here's had a hard time and he deserves better."_ _

__"Bunker," Sarah said, staring Shannon and her brand-new mystery dog. Bunker's ears perked up at the sound of his name. Well, one of them did; the other, a sadly mangled-looking thing, seemed to have no ability to perk. His lopsided appearance was enhanced by the meandering black patch between his ears and another one spread unevenly across his jaw. He had a kind of bulldog-ish face, muzzle pugnacious and crooked, but a terrier body, stocky and long, with wiry black and gray hair. He was as ugly as a pothole. But his tail wagged at a steady, even pace, wiggling his butt just a little, and his light brown eyes looked happy._ _

__Shannon shrugged, scratched Bunker's butt. The dog turned to her and kissed her hand, ecstatic. "I always wanted a puppy."_ _

__"This isn't a puppy--this is a full-grown dog! A big one!"_ _

__"Aww, he's a baby," Shannon said, chiding, like Sarah was going to hurt Bunker's feelings by implying he was a full-grown, big dog. Shannon leaned over, cooing deeply into his floppy ear, "Who's a little baby dog? Is it Bunker? Is it you, Bunker?" to which Bunker responded with desperate little puppy whines and kisses to Shannon's hands, her cheeks._ _

__Sarah looked at him, at Shannon basking in his affection, and said, "Okay. He can stay here."_ _

__"Yeah! High-five, Bunker!" Shannon held her hand out for Bunker to slap, but he licked it instead. "Okay, wow, how did you get to be as old as you are, dog, and no one taught you high-five? Put it on the list--that's the first thing on the list."_ _

__Sarah talked over her. " _But_ you're taking care of him--morning, noon and night. This is your dog, Mullins. Your responsibility. Are we clear?"_ _

__"Clear as can be," Shannon said. She handed Sarah Bunker's leash, which was shiny and new and orange. His collar seemed to have tiny Irish flags on it. Sarah and Bunker looked at each other as Shannon disappeared to her car._ _

__"So, are you from around here?" Sarah asked, and Bunker cocked his head in one direction, then the other. "Yeah, me neither. I like it, though. You get used to the Sox fans after a while."_ _

__Bunker grinned, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Sarah thought she was maybe beginning to see his appeal, and tentatively scratched the top of his head._ _

__Shannon came back up the walk with three lumpy black trash bags and a pretty nice rolling suitcase that looked oddly familiar and was, Sarah suspected, stolen property. "Here we go," she said, muscling past Sarah and Bunker to drop the bags in the foyer._ _

__Sarah looked at the pile. "Is this _all_ for Bunker?"_ _

__"No," Shannon said. She hefted up one of the trash bags, ruffled through it, frowned and hefted another. "This one is Bunker's. The rest of this is mine."_ _

__"Yours," Sarah said, flatly._ _

__"Yeah," Shannon said. "I mean, I'll need to be staying here if I want to take good care of my dog, right?"_ _

__And Sarah looked around her house, at Shannon's blanket and lamp and pictures, at the dog; at Shannon herself, as pugnacious as Bunker but her eyes a little more anxious. She put up a good front, but she was uncertain of her welcome._ _

__Shannon should never be uncertain of her welcome._ _

__Sarah smiled, closed the door. "Mi casa," she said to the woman who had made this a home to start with._ _

__The woman who smiled back, and promptly dropped her pants._ _

__Sarah blinked. Shannon's legs were muscular, heavy, pale. She had more freckles on her thighs, and fine downy hair. Of course she didn't bother to shave, Shannon thought with a bout of envy for Shannon's boldness, her comfort in her own skin, her refusal to conform. Then it was like a flip switched and Sarah went from seeing Shannon's legs to seeing _Shannon_ , half-naked in her foyer, struggling to kick off her boots and socks and pants. Her panties were nylon, an improbable shade of neon green._ _

__Sarah wanted, suddenly and desperately, to take them off her._ _

__She leaned down and took Bunker's leash off, hanging it neatly from a hook on the key rack._ _

__"I always take my pants off at home," Shannon said, having finally wrestled victory from the lap of dropped clothing. She raised her chin, crossing her arms over her chest, letting Sarah look as much as she liked._ _

__"That's good," Sarah said, earnest, admiring. "Very homey."_ _

__"Yeah." Shannon smiled, small and wicked. "What would you say to the idea of always taking off _your_ pants at home?"_ _

__Sarah pretended to consider this, tucking her hair behind her ears and looking at the ceiling in contemplation. "Okay," she said, and pushed her pajama bottoms down off her hips._ _

__When they fell to the floor, she bent down and picked them up, folding them neatly over her arm. Her panties were black cotton. They were going to clash terribly with Shannon's on the pale blue carpet in Sarah's boring bedroom in this boring townhouse. That was an exciting thought._ _

__"Bring yours with you," Sarah said, turning and leading the way to her room, letting her butt sway. "I keep a neat house." She heard Shannon swear behind her, scramble to puck up her pants, shove her boots in a corner, tell Bunker to sit-stay-for fuck's sake-don't eat _anything_ , and Sarah smiled. Letting Shannon stay with her would be like letting a bad-tempered tornado visit, a powerful force of destruction and foul language and terrible clothing choices. It would be like putting a grenade in the fridge. It would turn everything upside down. It was a mistake. _ _

__It was the best idea that Sarah Ashburn had ever had._ _

__She sprawled on her neatly-made bed in her neatly-tidied room. Shannon poked her head in, in her underwear, carrying her pants, and sneered. Sarah looked around like she was seeing the room for the first time, all beige and blue and careful to follow all the rules of bedroom decor without a deviation, a single unharmonious knick-knack._ _

__"You're right, it's fucking awful," Sarah said, then she gestured to Shannon, and invited chaos to come on in and make herself at home._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide, Toft! I was delighted to match with you on The Heat and hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it. :) 
> 
> And thank you to my beta readers for their mockery, glee and hard work. <3


End file.
